"Stay there, Brother," Aurelian commanded, his voice dropping to a low, intimate hum. "I want to have one last private word with our scholar. I’m sure you don’t mind this one last conversation, right? You’ve always been so patient."

Alaric didn’t move, but he let out a low, guttural growl that vibrated in his chest, his boots steady on the floor as he fought the urge to lung through the line of guards. He just wanted to reach out and rip Julian away from that golden shadow, but he saw Julian’s hand move.

Julian’s trembling fingers reached for the silk ties of the porcelain mask. With a slow, deliberate motion, he pulled it away, letting it hang from his fingertips.

He had worn it just now to hide the grief he was passing through while putting on a performance for the guards because he was not confident he could mask all of that with a smile.

Though now he had calmed down a little bit, and could show his face without slipping up.

The night air hit his damp skin once again, stinging the tracks where his tears had dried. He turned his head just enough for Alaric to see his face—weary, pale, and heavy with a silent finality. He didn’t say a word, but his eyes pleaded for Alaric to wait just a few moments longer.

This was the last hurdle.

Aurelian watched the silent exchange, his grip on Julian’s shoulder tightening. He pulled Julian to the side and leaned in, speaking with a voice filled with spite that was meant only for Julian’s ears.

"You think this is the end?" Aurelian whispered. "Does it thrill you?" Julian did not answer. "You probably think it’s over since after now, you can walk out of my garden and back into his bed as if I haven’t spent every hour of this week rewriting the map of your mind," he clicked his tongue in annoyance. "If you leave tonight, Julian Von Astrea, you’d better leave a part of yourself here. If not, I will ensure—"

The emperor is obsessed with me.

It’s disgusting.

I hate the Emperor.

I want to get away from here. I want to go with the Duke and never come back to the Capital.

I want to go back to the cold North. That place feels so much warmer than this palace ever will be.

I... want... to...

The Emperor’s voice began to warp in Julian’s ears, turning into a distorted, hollow ring as different fractured thoughts occupied his mind. His words held threats that he was very familiar with, but that was not why the words were warping.

Julian felt dizzy, unable to keep his attention fixed on the present, on reality, and his heart was racing at an alarming rate.

The black water of the Mirror Pond started to swirl, and the silver stars on Julian’s chest felt like they were sinking into his skin, dragging him down, and the world in his vision began to spin. Everything felt like a figment of his imagination, so unreal, but was it? He didn’t know, he just... wanted to get away from the Emperor.

Suddenly, right in the center of his fading sight, the System interface flickered into existence one last time, the Quest log was glowing red for some reason, the text bleeding into the darkness of the garden.

> [MAIN QUEST: THE GOLDEN CAGE]

> [Objective: Survive the Emperor’s malice]

> [Time Remaining: 0 hours, 31 minutes]

> [Reward: ???]

There were only 30 minutes left, and it would be over. All of this would be over, but then, what was this eerie feeling down his spine? What was this uncertainty he had of the reality in front of him?

His head was unclear.

The quest log began to pulse rapidly, shaking, and then turning into a violent, glitching crimson.

A new window snapped open, overlapping the quest log with a blaring warning that Julian could feel vibrating in his very marrow.

> [WARNING: HOST’S SOUL FRACTURING IN PROGRESS...]

> [CRITICAL SYSTEM INTERFERENCE DETECTED]

> [FORCING INITIAL TAKEOVER]

> [CURRENT HOST: KIM JOWOON]

> [DORMANT HOST: JULIAN VON ASTREA]

> [FROM THIS POINT ON... THE PLOT UNFOLDS]

What did that... even mean? Julian could not make any sense of it. How could he when reality was feeling so unreal to him right now? If he could not make sense of reality in front of him, how could he make sense of the encrypted words of the system?

Then gradually, the strength that had held Julian upright through the entire night finally snapped.

Without a sound, his knees buckled, and his eyes rolled back, as if his consciousness had been pulled out of the control switch.

He slumped forward, his forehead thudding against the Emperor’s chest and ready to slide down into the ink-black water, but he didn’t, not with the Emperor’s arms holding him.

It happened with no warning, and Aurelian would’ve probably thought twice about holding him if he knew what was going to happen, but he froze as his arms instinctively caught the scholar to keep him from sliding into the ink-black water. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

He looked down at the pale, unconscious face, his golden eyes wide with a flicker of genuine shock.

Across from them, Alaric didn’t need a signal to act. He had been watching Julian’s every blink. And the moment Julian’s posture broke, the Duke charged in.

He shoved past the guards with a primal strength that sent them reeling before they could even reset their halberds.

"What did you do to him?" Alaric demanded, his voice a low, jagged snarl as he reached the edge of the pond. He didn’t carelessly reach for his dagger this time but reached for Julian, his eyes burning with a desperate, protective rage.

Aurelian looked at the scholar slumped against his body, then at his brother’s devastated expression, and then back at Julian. A slow, twisted realization seemed to settle over him as he felt how cold Julian’s skin had become.

"Isn’t this quite the show?" Aurelian mused, a soft, unsettling laugh finally breaking his silence.

To him, the irony was perfect: the man he had spent a week trying to dismantle had finally surrendered right into his arms. Even if not willingly, it was still a surrender.

He would like to reel in his delusion that he had succeeded in breaking him to this point.